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Kamala Harris’ presidential marketing campaign is drawing from a reservoir of her former big-dollar donors who hadn’t given when President Joe Biden was main the ticket. And they signify main gamers from a key homegrown business for the California native: tech.
It’s a sector that had gave the impression to be largely supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump earlier than Biden exited the race. Now, there’s a big section of tech leaders and staff who’re backing Harris.
After Biden withdrew on July 21, Harris raised greater than $59 million from people nationally for the rest of July and over 20 % of it — $12.5 million — got here from California, in accordance with a POLITICO evaluation of her marketing campaign’s itemized donors, launched Tuesday in Federal Election Commission filings. Itemized donations sometimes replicate marketing campaign funders who’ve given greater than $200.
The tech business performs a notable function in Harris’ help from her house state. Employees at Google and its father or mother firm Alphabet ($262,000) made up the biggest tech contributions, adopted by Apple ($170,000) and Meta ($81,000).
And her marketing campaign can also be poised to win again much more particular person donors within the tech business who supported her 2020 presidential run. More than 10,000 Californians contributed to Harris in 2019, however then didn’t donate when she was working as Biden’s vp, in accordance with self-reported identify and ZIP code matching. About 460 of these donors labored in tech and raised round $400,000 for her 2020 marketing campaign. Harris additionally had greater than $290,000 from monetary sector and enterprise capitalist donors who didn’t give to Biden-Harris.
Those deep-pocketed and influential donors may assist Harris win in November, in a race the place Trump and working mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance additionally take pleasure in tech strongholds.
Andrew Byrnes, a Silicon Valley-based lawyer and marketing campaign bundler for Harris, mentioned the one different time he’s seen this sort of mobilization was for Barack Obama. And Harris has extra tech cred. “Obama was not a Californian like Kamala is.”
This time, he mentioned, her marketing campaign “appears to be on the verge of a motion.”
“A pillar of the marketing campaign, I feel, can be important engagement and enthusiasm from the those that have identified her longest,” Byrnes mentioned. “Because she is from right here, lots of these individuals are in tech.”
Out of Harris’ former supporters in tech, Google, Apple, Sony, Meta and Salesforce had been the highest employers of contributors. Among them are Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Meta safety chief Alex Stamos and Twitter’s former govt chair Omid Kordestani. Benioff gave to Harris in 2019, however mentioned in 2020 he would now not be taking political positions because the proprietor of TIME journal. Stamos’ first donation to the 2024 marketing campaign was made the day Biden dropped out and Harris took over the ticket on July 21, in accordance with FEC filings.
Innovators for Harris co-founder Carrie Pendolino has seen this “important” shift amongst donors in actual time. The nationwide group was first created to assist get Obama elected, then Biden in 2020 and now Harris. Unlike earlier election cycles, Pendolino famous the tech group was gradual to get entangled this yr — till Harris grew to become the nominee.
“There is that hesitancy to put money into one thing that you just don’t know the return on,” she mentioned.
Trump senior adviser Brian Hughes mentioned that there was little doubt round what his candidate would do for the business. Trump’s insurance policies will “enable the U.S. to reclaim its world dominance of innovation and know-how,” Hughes mentioned, arguing that the Biden-Harris White House has stifled innovation for 4 years.
“When you will have dozens of business leaders like Elon Musk and David Sacks among the many lengthy listing of supporters, it’s a recognition that President Trump is the clear selection,” Hughes wrote to POLITICO.
It wasn’t simply uncertainty round Biden’s capacity to get reelected that stored tech donors on the sidelines, but additionally his administration’s agenda. LinkedIn co-founder and enterprise capitalist Reid Hoffman, who’s backing Harris, publicly known as on her to exchange Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, whose anti-merger actions are “waging conflict on American enterprise,” he mentioned.
And one other entrepreneur, cellular gaming firm Zynga founder Mark Pincus, mentioned on X on July 23 that he’s in opposition to Trump, however would sit out the election if Harris “veers left (as Biden was beginning to),” citing Biden’s “latest proposals for worth caps and taxes” in one other publish. While he didn’t donate to Harris’ 2020 presidential race, Pincus donated to Biden’s marketing campaign in December 2023, FEC filings present.
Now, the business is stepping up for the Democratic Party, each with donations and involvement. And, in some circumstances, Silicon Valley leaders who had been leaning towards Trump are “altering their minds” with Harris on the high of the ticket, in accordance with Pendolino, who declined to call particular individuals.
Cybersecurity professionals raised greater than $150,000 for her marketing campaign throughout one sideline occasion at a hacking convention earlier this month. Silicon Valley tech attorneys signed as much as bundle donations simply hours after Biden withdrew from the election. And over 200 enterprise capitalists and tech leaders pledged their help to Harris — a gaggle dedication supposed to “push again to the narrative” that Silicon Valley is split between Harris and Trump, tech govt and main Democratic bundler Steve Spinner advised POLITICO in July.
Harris taking on the marketing campaign has additionally energized individuals who don’t sometimes get entangled within the political subject — like Waseem Daher, the San Francisco-based founding father of a bookkeeping startup who pledged to match donations as much as $1 million after which unfold the funds amongst Harris’ marketing campaign, the DNC and Democratic state events. That prompted enterprise capitalist Ron Conway to say he’d donate $10,000 extra.
“$1m is a double-digit proportion of my complete web price so this isn’t an informal factor for me,” Daher wrote. “I’ve by no means donated to a presidential marketing campaign earlier than, nevertheless it seems like a lot is at stake on this election.”
It’s nonetheless unclear what Harris’ insurance policies can be on business priorities, specifically capital features tax and rules for synthetic intelligence and cryptocurrency.
She has a combined document on tech. Harris has been extra outspoken than Biden when advocating for AI rules and information privateness. But she’s additionally fashioned alliances with business leaders, together with Conway and former Meta chief working officer Sheryl Sandberg. Her typically pleasant method to tech appears to be ramping up since her marketing campaign launched; her staff reportedly reached out to crypto corporations in late July, across the similar time that a number of House Democrats urged the Democratic National Committee to help pro-crypto insurance policies in its platform — a step away from Biden’s hostility towards crypto.
Harris’ working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has a strong document on tech coverage, although he’s acquired little or no in donations from the business previously. Walz was one of many first governors to ban deepfakes in elections, enacted an govt order to bolster oversight of cyber threats and signed a shopper information privateness invoice, amongst different insurance policies.
The grey space in Harris’ tech platform isn’t really a priority for a lot of within the business, Pendolino claimed. As against rooting for her insurance policies, they’re rooting for a candidate who they consider will hearken to the wants of the business.
“She’s been a part of the rise of Silicon Valley by residing and respiratory it within the Bay Area,” Pendolino mentioned. “So I feel it’s an intuitive factor that we will focus on issues together with her administration.”
Pendolino famous that Harris’ brother-in-law, Tony West, was the chief authorized officer for Uber, which provides to the business’s comfortability. West is among the individuals who donated to Harris’ 2020 run however didn’t donate to the 2024 marketing campaign earlier than Biden withdrew. Earlier this month, he introduced an unpaid depart from Uber to assist together with her marketing campaign.
Meanwhile, Trump has made a concerted effort to color himself because the pro-crypto candidate, even supporting the concept of building a reserve of Bitcoin property. He’s gained notable endorsements from Elon Musk and enterprise capitalists David Sacks, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and Doug Leone. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, founders of the crypto platform Gemini, mentioned they every donated $1 million in Bitcoin to Trump.
Vance, a former Silicon Valley biotech govt, hopes to revamp federal oversight of crypto, although he additionally helps antitrust enforcement of Big Tech, a difficulty the Biden administration has carried out in full drive. Musk, Sacks and others reportedly urged Trump to pick out Vance as his working mate, POLITICO beforehand reported.
On a podcast hosted by Andreessen and Horowitz, the a16z enterprise capital founders made their case for supporting Trump, calling his crypto platform a “flat out, blanket endorsement of your entire house.” They criticized Biden’s proposal to tax unrealized capital features, AI restrictions and his veto of a rollback on SEC’s cryptocurrency coverage that gained bipartisan help in Congress.
“The way forward for our enterprise, the way forward for know-how, new know-how and the way forward for America is actually at stake,” Horowitz mentioned. “For little tech, we expect Donald Trump is definitely the correct selection.”
But Trump’s help isn’t “reflective of a broader transfer within the Valley,” in accordance with Byrnes, the tech lawyer who backs Harris. Similarly, individuals not giving to Biden earlier than he withdrew doesn’t point out the business as an entire was hostile towards him — “tech isn’t a monolith, politically or in any other case,” he added.
The 1000’s of different Harris 2020 donors who didn’t give to Biden-Harris additionally present that the vp’s California fan base stretches past Silicon Valley.
Much of her help for the 2020 run was rooted in her previous experiences as a district lawyer in San Francisco and Alameda counties, California’s lawyer normal and a U.S. senator. From Harris’ California donors that didn’t give for Biden’s 2024 race, she raised over $1.2 million from authorities and authorized staff, a 3rd of which got here from the Bay Area.
“She’s a listener,” Byrnes mentioned. “She has listened to the tech business, as she has different industries, and her insurance policies have mirrored that understanding of what’s actually occurring on the bottom, in tech and in innovation.
